Between prayer and music

Between prayer and music – this will be the experience offered to us during this special time by Przemysław Neumann and our Orchestra. Not everything that moves us has to be loud. Some works do not seek effects that do not rush toward a climax. They stop somewhere between prayer and music – and that is where they remain.

In the first part of the concert, we will hear Stabat Mater by Karol Szymanowski, one of the composer's most poignant yet economical and transparent works. It was written in 1926 after the death of the composer's beloved niece. Although it is based on the medieval text about the suffering of the Virgin Mary at the cross, it is not a liturgy but rather a personal confession.

Szymanowski abandoned Latin in favor of a Polish translation, replacing monumental orchestral rhetoric with folk music, using modal scales and melodies with the simplicity of almost folk-like songs. As he wrote, he wanted to create the quietest and humblest of works. There are no dramatic climaxes here. Instead, there are balanced choral prayers, dialogues between instruments and voices – three solo parts, the National Forum of Music Choir, and the Szczecin Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Przemysław Neumann. The soloists will be: soprano Ilona Krzywicka, laureate of the prestigious Prix Lyrique L’AROP 2012, who has performed on the stage of the Paris Opera, among others. The alto part is entrusted to Justyna Rapacz, who is perfectly at home in the oratorio-cantata repertoire, as evidenced by her extensive collaboration with the Semperoper Dresden and her performance of Brahms' "Alto-Rhapsody." The baritone parts will be performed by Adam Kutny, a laureate of numerous vocal competitions and a soloist with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin from 2019 to 2024.

Szymanowski's Stabat Mater performed by Chen Reiss (soprano), Gerhild Romberger (alto), Mark Stone (baritone), the Groot Omroepkoor choir, and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest conducted by Markus Stenz:

After the break, we will move to another world but remain in the same spiritual space. We will hear the orchestral suite from Richard Wagner's Parsifal, arranged by Henk de Vlieger. It is Wagner's final stage work, which he himself called not an opera but a "stage mystery." The story of Parsifal – the "pure fool" who becomes a savior through compassion – is not theater but a musical meditation on redemption.

The suite contains key fragments of this 4.5-hour opera. It shows how Wagner abandons theatrical narration in favor of a sound that does not lead the action but creates space – calm, expansive, almost mystical. Its heart is the so-called Good Friday Music. It is an instrumental and vocal fragment from Act III, which accompanies the scene of the conversation between Parsifal and Gurnemanz. Parsifal wonders why everything around him is so beautiful – even though it is Good Friday.

Gurnemanz explains that suffering purifies the world and that everything blooms because of this suffering. Let this also be the message of our evening between prayer and music.

Suite from Wagner's Parsifal performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Gourlay: